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Lists of Note

Want to read Johnny Cash’s to-do list or see how Houdini prepared for a performance? Course you do, and now thanks to the team behind the brilliant Letters of Note you can. Lists of Note is quite new, but what’s there is already fascinating and if it grows like its sister site then we’re all in for a load of list-based loveliness (the best kind).

Hello and welcome to the new look It’s Nice That. Just over eight years ago we launched the first ever version of It’s Nice That. What started as a response to a university brief has seen many changes and iterations in its steady growth, and internally we’re referring to this redesign as version five – the most recent big change to the site being back in April 2012. A lot has changed since then and this redesign sees not only a change to our look and feel but also our editorial structure.

We’re not usually ones to toot our own tin whistle, but if we do say so ourselves we’ve published rather a lot of lovely things in the past year. And because we really love you, our readers, we want to share these with you at very very good price, friends. That’s why we’re doing a summer sale on EVERYTHING, yes, EVERYTHING we published in 2014, knocking a whopping 50% off their usual prices. So that’s half price on the It’s Nice That 2014 Annual and the Summer, Autumn and Winter issues of Printed Pages. Head over to the It’s Nice That shop Company of Parrots and fill your lucky little boots!

The good people of bonkers collective Hungry Castle never disappoint. From a huge Lionel Ritchie head you climb into and answer “hello” to a ringing phone to a laser cat, their hair-brained schemes make the sort of things you dream up in late night pub-chats into huge, glorious reality. Now, they present Nicolas Cage in a Cage. Not too much more to say about it really, apart from “WHY THE BEJESUS HAS NOONE DONE THIS BEFORE!” Hungry Castle explains: “You can get in the cage with Nicolas Cage. Yes. You can…This meme-inspired masterpiece was built to bounce. An artwork that reflects the internet and the internet’s effect on culture. Love him or hate him, you won’t break Nicolas Cage.”

Paint By User should come with a trigger warning for anyone with an addictive personality, those easily aggressed by internet saboteurs and anyone with a propensity for procrastination. It turns out I suffer with all three, but didn’t quite realise until I started playing with the site, created by Matthew Britton and Bertie Muller, the pair behind a site that lets you skip YouTube. It offers up a utopian idea of allowing anyone with an internet connection to work on the same piece of rather basic, but potentially quite pretty piece of art in realtime using rudimentary MS Paint-type tools. What it soon morphs into is a competitive, dystopian pit of cock drawings, people writing things like “spurt” and an oddly indelible image of a bird-like creature with a grotesque arse. We tried and failed to write “It’s Nice That” legibly across the screen but before you can say “nice” some online MORON has painted over it in black. Do, please have a go – it’s viciously good fun – but please, please don’t blame us when suddenly it’s 5pm and you’ve done nothing all day apart from YELL AT YOUR SCREEN and draw willies.

There’s a million articles around about the benefits/pitfalls of freelance life, and even more about the nitty-gritty of going it alone – how to invoice, why it’s important to sometimes get dressed, the importance of “networking” and all that guff. The reality, of course, is that what works for one independent creative would be anathema to another. Especially in the creative industries, people each have their little nuances and peccadilloes, so we wanted to chat to creatives to find out what really makes life easier for them; from where they like to work, to Skyping clients in your pants to making friends with Turkish shopkeepers. We’ve chatted with five freelancers from Working Not Working, an invite-only global network of top creative talent.What’s refreshing from everyone we chat to is an openness about not really being too sure what they’re doing, but doing it anyway – a nice antidote to the terrifying feeling that everyone else is better or more confident than you. “Half the time we don’t really know what we’re doing but we’re just powering through…!,” admits animation studio Moth Collective. “Prepare yourself to become friends with the voice inside your head. Don’t piss him/her off or they will become your worst enemy!” graphic designer Thom Lambert adds.

It’s been on our radar for some time now but 2015 seemed like the moment to explore an often overlooked hub of North American creativity. Montreal plays host to a plethora of creative talent, from cutting-edge photogaphers like Maya Fuhr and Alexi Hobbs to design studios Charmant & Courtois and Fivethousand Fingers. It’s got a thriving illustration scene, a powerhouse of comics publishing in Drawn & Quarterly and a heap of fierce contenders to be the best sandwich in town. Sadly we’ve never made it over for longer than a few days so had to beg, borrow and steal some insider information from our friends and Montreal natives, who helped us get a handle on what makes the city tick.